IITs see fall in number of students qualifying, to hold emergency meeting

The Joint Admission Board (JAB) has called an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the issue of increasing the number of qualified students for Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced, responding to concerns over the likely situation of seats going vacant.

This year, the result of the JEE Advanced 2018 declared by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur on Sunday witnessed a drastic fall in the number of candidates who qualified.

Students who clear JEE Advanced are eligible to take admission in any one of the 23 IITs all over the country. An aspirant has to first qualify for JEE (Main) and figure in the top two lakh candidates to sit for JEE Advanced. The Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) will announce the first seat allotment on June 27.

As per official figures provided by IIT, out of the 1,55,158 students who appeared for Paper 1 and Paper 2 of JEE Advanced 2018 on May 20, only 18,138 students qualified.

According to officials, although most IIT directors are of the view that out of the total seats offered, 70% usually get filled, there might be an issue in filling up some seats.

Of the 10,998 seats that were offered in the 23 IITs in 2017, the number of vacancies after seven rounds of counselling stood at 121, which was more than the 96 vacancies in 2016. In 2015, there were 50 vacant seats and in 2014, three.

“There are a total of 11,279 seats that are on offer and 18,138 students have qualified. Last year, the last rank at which a seat was allotted in 2017 was less than 14,000, so it might not be a major issue. But at the same time, a number of students often don’t take admission if they fail to get into the course of their choice. There is a slight chance that not all of the seats may be filled. The meeting has been called to discuss that,” said a senior official.